Encounters
by r4ven3
Summary: A series of hidden scenes, set after Ruth returns from Cyprus. Told in 4 chapters (plus an epilogue), this story tells of the encounters between Ruth and Harry which were not covered in the canon story - but these hidden scenes weave easily between the canon episodes, 8.02 to 8,08.
1. Chapter 1

_**A/N: This opens a few days after Harry and Ruth meet at the beginning of 8.02.**_

* * *

He knows this is a very bad idea, and that his presence at her home – this sanctuary he has found for her – will only add the kind of volatility which could blow them apart forever, creating a chasm neither would ever be capable of crossing. Something has made him come to see her – away from the Grid, away from crowds of people going about what it is they go about every day with such energy and fervour, the babble of thousands of conversations spilling over into the delicate space between them. She had laughed – hardly a laugh, more like a scoff – when he had defended his efforts to reach her by saying: "Ruth, I'm trying …... with all my limitations." It's been so difficult for them both, but so much more difficult for her. For him, he has only lost a chance at something he never really had, while she has lost her life partner …... a man she lived with, slept with, confided in, cared for. Even if Ruth hadn't loved him, this George had had something with Ruth which Harry had only ever dreamed about. Harry wonders – as he has often wondered during the past week – what George had that he himself didn't. Why was it Ruth had fallen into George's bed, joined her life with his, and yet she'd run from Harry each time they got close to one another? Each time he's entertained the idea, he comes up with the same answer. George was a doctor – an honourable profession, one with no necessity for secrets. George was handsome and young, and probably quite virile. Harry is relieved that he hasn't a problem with virility, but he is not young, and nor is he handsome. He certainly knows his limitations.

Harry sits in his car outside the flat he had chosen for Ruth. He couldn't bear the idea of her stuck in a soulless safe house on her own, her partner dead, and her beloved step-son back in Cyprus, surrounded by his extended family. He chose the flat, out of many less salubrious dwellings-for-rent. Ruth's flat is a few rooms in a large, old Victorian home, which had been divided into flats post-World War Two, at a time when housing was in short supply. Most small flats for rent are to be found in sky-high tenement buildings, and he can't bear the thought of Ruth living in one of them, negotiating lifts which are either out-of-order, or soiled with excrement and vomit. He couldn't bear the thought of her living somewhere which may be frequented by drug dealers, or men who terrorise their wives and girlfriends, raising their hands and their voices. He'd thought of offering her a room in his own home, but that thought had been quashed rather quickly. The nearer Ruth is to him, the more danger she is likely to face.

There is a light on in the front room …... not the main light, but a gentle glow from the lamp on the low table. He'd chosen the lamp himself, believing that the Ruth he knows – knew – would likely enjoy the diorama of images from a Chinese folk tale which decorate the lampshade in tones of pale yellow and muted pink.

He is sure she will slam the door in his face. This is all he deserves. Perhaps she'll call the police and have him arrested for harassment. He is almost to the front door when the light in the front room is switched off. He waits. It is only 9.30 pm after all, not exactly late. Then the light in the front bedroom is turned on. She is retiring for the night. Harry stops, his hand about to grasp the knocker on the front door. He pulls back his hand, and steps back from the door. _Phew – close one._

Harry turns and walks back to his car. With his hand on the door handle, he looks up to the window of Ruth's front bedroom. The light is now off, and he is sure he sees the curtain move, as though someone had been looking out, but then let the curtain fall back to ensure they are not seen. Harry stands there for a moment, and watches the window. He wills her to again pull the curtain back, but two minutes pass, and nothing happens. _And nothing will until she hears the motor kick over, and then she hears me drive off._

Harry gets into his car, starts the engine, and drives away, casting one last look back at Ruth's flat before he turns the corner, and leaves her street. He tries to empty his mind of thoughts of her by turning the radio on to a talk-back station. Callers are talking about racial violence on the streets of Manchester and Birmingham. He blocks the voices of the callers, and in his mind conjures the sound of another voice – the voice he had not heard for nearly three years, the dearest voice he knows. The trouble is that in his head all he can hear is this voice turned on him coldly, her words angry and accusing.

* * *

Once she hears Harry's car leave her street, Ruth feels safe enough to turn on the light in her bathroom, so that she can perform her before-bedtime routine. Bloody Harry. He just won't give up. She cleans her teeth with more vigour than usual, as she watches herself in the mirror above her hand basin. She knows that she's blaming Harry unfairly, but she has to have somewhere to put her anger …... and she has a lot of anger. Jo has been trying to call her, and Ruth has taken to turning off her phone, just in case she is tempted to answer …. as she was when Harry rang. She hasn't answered a call in days, not since she agreed to meet Harry four days earlier.

Ruth knows it is too early for her to be contemplating returning to work on the Grid, but she has to do something, and she'll have to think about doing that something quite soon. The service will pay her rent for a while, but they won't keep her forever. They will soon find an intelligence analyst who is younger, quicker, more savvy than she, and then where will she be?

Ruth acknowledges, as she sits on the toilet peeing, that she has missed everyone – especially Jo. Before she decided to go out with George, she missed Harry terribly. Now …... now, she has no idea. In the space of hours, she lost the safety and gentleness of her life in Cyprus, she lost George, she lost Nico, she lost everything she had. And now? Now she has nothing. She has the shadow of a life she'd once lived, but it feels like she is stepping back …... into the shadows, into the role of a lurker, a watcher-of-others, into the abyss ... and she doesn't know if she has the strength to do it all again.

Once she's finished in the bathroom, Ruth crawls under the duvet and lies on her side, facing away from the window. It's taking her some time to get used to again sleeping alone, and more than anything, Ruth feels lonely. She misses her life in Cyprus. Perhaps she misses her life there more than she misses George, but it is difficult for her to unravel that life, and to separate the pieces into their component parts …... George, Nico, her job, the people – so welcoming – the climate, the ocean, swimming, the market. Everything in her life there was interwoven, and every single piece was of value to her. It's just that now that life is behind her, she can't determine which pieces were the most dear to her.

Ruth pictures her typical day in Cyprus, and then the tears fall on to her pillow …... first a few, and then twenty or so, then a hundred, and eventually, thousands. She falls asleep exhausted.


	2. Chapter 2

_3 weeks later:_

Ruth sits over her avocado salad, picking out all the avocado pieces and putting them together on the side of her plate. She only momentarily contemplates why it was she tossed the ingredients of the salad together with dressing, when she fully intends separating all of them, and putting them in piles on her plate - the avocado pieces with avocado, olives with olives, and so on. She knows why it is she does this – the tossing, not the separating. For eighteen months of her life, she'd prepared food for three people, two of whom preferred a salad to be tossed together in random fashion, so that is what she still does. Old habits. They take a while to break.

Harry fills her thoughts more and more as the days pass, as the image of George being shot in the back of the head slowly fades. Her only real concern now is for Nico. She still misses him, and she still misses George and her life. She worries that Nico has been traumatised by the events of a month ago, and that he will never understand why she and he had to be parted. Ruth also recognises that even had George not been killed, she could never have returned to her life with him in Cyprus. George would not have allowed her former life to again bleed into the perfect life he'd created for himself and his son, and she would never have blamed him for that. When Mani's men drove into the yard of her house in Cyprus, it spelled the end to her idyllic life on that island. For her, there could never be the possibility of going back.

Only three days earlier she'd met with Harry in the city. She had offered him an apology, and he'd replied with: "I'm sorry for everything ….. really. Truly sorry." Ruth knew that he meant more than the events of the previous month. He'd meant _everything_, which included allowing her to give up her life in London in order to save his career. In Harry's mind, he owes her. As she'd walked away after they'd talked, Ruth was also shocked by another realisation. While her relationship with George had been like a holiday romance, her feelings for Harry were – and somewhere still deep inside her, still are – the real thing. Her feelings for him seemed to have stood the test of their long separation, and that scares her.

Ruth had been woken in the early hours by a vivid dream. She'd sat up in bed, her breath coming in gasps, her heart beating rapidly. She'd dreamed they were back in the abandoned building, she and Harry, and Mani had raised his voice, threatening Harry. Suddenly, Harry had stood up, stepped across to her, his hands no longer tied, and grasped her hand, and then he'd held on to her hand tightly while he jumped through the window, taking her with him. They'd flown through the air, their hands tightly clasped, Mani's voice echoing in their ears: "You'll never get out of here alive, Harry." Ruth had woken before they hit the ground. She knew the dream was a good omen, even though she could not yet say why.

* * *

Harry stands at Ruth's front door. He has not asked her can he visit, but he feels he may be welcome this night, where three weeks earlier, he'd known he was the last person Ruth had wanted to see. He is carrying a box, and two carry bags of Ruth's possessions from before she went into exile. He knocks on her door, unaware he is holding his breath.

The door opens, and she smiles at him, standing back to allow him entry into her front hallway.

"I have some things of yours, Ruth," he says quietly. "I …... rescued them from your house after …..."

"Come into the front room," she says gently, her eyes meeting his only fleetingly. "Would you like something to drink, Harry? I only have tea. I have nothing stronger."

"Tea will be fine."

"Do you still have it the same way?"

Harry nods, and smiles at her, warmed that she remembers something as obscure as how he took his tea three years ago. Of course, he still takes it the same way – a drop of milk, and three sugars ….. four if no-one is watching. He is a man of habit.

They sit in her living room, he on a comfortable chair, and Ruth on the sofa, and they sip their tea.

"Those things," Harry says, indicating the bags and the box he'd carried inside, "are all yours. From your house. You can look through them after I've left. I also have some clothes of yours in the car. I wasn't sure you'd still want them …... after all this time."

"Why did you keep them?"

"The clothes?"

"All of it." Ruth's eyes indicates she means everything Harry had brought into her flat.

Harry hesitates, sipping his tea again to give himself time. He'd forgotten how difficult it could be, talking with Ruth. She'd always gleaned meaning from every syllable, every nuance. "It was optimism, really …... just in case you came home, and …... I needed something to …... remember you by. I thought we'd never meet again. I had to have something to remind myself of what we …... almost were."

"What we were, Harry. We _were_ that. It's just that we didn't acknowledge it to each other."

Harry nods, feeling his body warming with her words, her presence. "I'd occasionally – after a particularly bad day at work – look through your things, trying to imagine you talking to me, telling me what I should do."

"Did it work?"

"Sometimes. Sometimes, it just made me feel very sad."

They have both said enough now about how they feel. The rest will go unsaid, as is their way. They talk about the Grid, and what Ruth should expect when she turns up for work the following day.

"I think you'll like Tariq," Harry says with a smile. "He's Malcolm's replacement. He's young and bright ….. just the kind of young person for you to be taking under your wing."

This time it is Ruth's turn to drop her eyes, and concentrate on the tea in her cup. She holds it between her hands, as if hugging it for warmth. Ruth offers to make him another cup of tea, and he accepts, happy that she has not thrown him out. They are very slowly inching closer.

By the time they finish their second cup of tea, Harry knows that he has reached the limit of his welcome in Ruth's new home. It will take them each time and much adjustment for them to be able to be comfortable with one another again. Too much has happened, and they lived through it together, and it was horrific ... and yet they are still here. He stands, stretching the muscles of his back, sore from sitting, sore from holding in so much that he wants to say, and perhaps never will.

"I have to go, Ruth."

"I know that you don't _have_ to go, Harry. I know you're being sensitive to my need for solitude."

"Yes …... well ….."

"There's something I need to say …... should you wish to hear it."

Harry turns, waiting for her to speak.

"There's a belief – a belief I can relate to – that when people behave at their worst, and make accusations they can't take back, that they're more likely to direct it at the people they love the most – those whose opinions and regard they value, and whom they consider will still love them, no matter how hurtful are their words."

Harry nods and smiles. He thinks – hopes – he understands what she is trying to say.

"Thank you for the tea, Ruth," he says as he leaves. "I'll see you tomorrow, bright and early."

By the time Harry is sitting in his car, and has done up his seatbelt, he is sure that he understands what Ruth was saying to him. She'd felt free enough to be angry with him because she loves him …... still. On the other hand, he could be imagining things, interpreting her words to suit his own need for her to still feel for him what he has for so long denied feeling for her. Either way, Ruth has allowed him into her flat, and he stayed long enough to drink two cups of tea. He now looks forward to the next day – Ruth's first day back at work.

As he drives away from Ruth's flat and heads for home, Harry is smiling. It is the first evening in a very long time that he has genuinely looked forward to waking up in the morning.

* * *

Back in her flat, Ruth watches Harry through the curtains of her front room. Harry has always surprised her, and tonight was no exception. He is a gentle man, and she'd forgotten that. Gentleness in a man is important to her. George had been gentle, but not as gentle as Harry is capable of being. Until he'd apologised to her for his part in the events which led to George's murder, she'd forgotten that he is also a man of honour and principle. Yes, he's limited in some ways – especially when it comes to expressing his emotions – but she acknowledges that of all the people she knows, he is the one she trusts the most. Every day of his life Harry has to make decisions which would stress most people to the point of paralysis, and yet the people of Britain rely on him to make the correct decisions, often under extreme stress. Ruth believes that Harry deserves her love and support, and that perhaps she should keep her scorn and her judgement to herself.


	3. Chapter 3

_23½ hours later:_

Ruth flops down in her comfy chair in the corner of her front room. She is both exhausted and distressed, and is gulping back tears. On her way home, she got off the bus two stops early, and bought two bottles of pinot noir, and a bottle of single malt whiskey. It will be the first alcohol she has consumed in the month-and-a-bit since George was murdered. The whiskey is for very bad days, and her first day back on the Grid has been a _very_ bad day.

Ruth had been enjoying her first day back at work. She was right in the thick of things, and it took her no time at all to step back into the unique role she had been so proud of before her life had imploded, and she'd had to leave the country. Harry and she still worked very well together – hand in glove, well-oiled-machine, Swiss watch. You could take your pick of the analogies to describe them ….. they were all of them ... and Ruth was reminded of how alive her work made her feel. Harry had welcomed her back, and she had replied with: "It's good to be back," and it _was_ good to be back. Very, very good.

And then something went terribly wrong. Harry had ordered Jo to take the lift to the panic room under the hotel in Hampstead to help Ros, but chiefly to negotiate an end to a seige. Then Jo took a bullet – a bullet from Ros' gun, which passed through the body of the target, and into hers. Jo is dead. Sweet, innocent, hard-working, loyal – far too young - Jo …. is dead. On Ruth's first day back working on the Grid in three years, Jo has died. This is what it is like, this is what it will always be like. You go in one door, and they carry you out of another in a body bag.

Of course, Harry blames himself, and Ruth has little idea how he can continue to carry the burden of guilt for everything which goes wrong in the operations he leads. He was the one to tell her of Jo's death. He was stoic and calm as he gave her the news, and yet she'd no sooner left his office, than she broke down against the wall outside the door, no longer able to hold in the shock and pain. If Harry had heard her crying, he didn't show it. He no doubt had enough to do, holding in his own grief. When she left work, he still had to speak to Jo's parents. Ruth believes that Harry's job frequently carries responsibilities no man should have to shoulder on his own.

Which is why, after two large single malts, Ruth is dialling Harry's mobile. It is almost 9 pm. He'll still be up. He answers quickly, after only two rings.

"Ruth," he says, and she's sure the flush which rushes up her neck to her face is from hearing his voice, and not due to the warmth of the whiskey.

"I wanted to check to see how you are. Have you spoken to Jo's parents?"

"I visited her mother straight from work, and I only just got off the phone from speaking to her father."

"How was it?"

"Bloody. It was …... truly awful."

"Harry …..."

Ruth doesn't know what else to say. She knows he'll not want company, and he probably doesn't wish to be speaking to her right now.

"I just wanted you to know that …. that I'm thinking of you, Harry. If you need to talk to anyone …..."

"Ruth -"

"I mean it. At any time of the day or night. I'll listen."

"You've already been through enough, Ruth."

"So have you, Harry. So have you."

There are a couple of minutes during which they each breathe into the phone, listening to the steady breathing of the other. Neither has anything more to say, but nor do they wish to break the connection between them. It is almost the most intimate encounter they have had in the six years since they'd first met. Just breathing into the phone, listening to the other person breathing. To Ruth, it feels as close as were they lying beside one another, preparing to sleep.

_Oh, no, Evershed. You can't be thinking like this. You cannot expect Harry to be taking George's place. But …... wasn't it George who had taken Harry's place? Harry was in my life, in my thoughts long before I met George._

Ruth hears a heavy sigh – which may have been a yawn - from the other end of the phone.

"Harry," she says, "you need to go to bed."

"It's only just gone 9. I'll never sleep. I'm considering going back into work."

"Will you do something? For me."

"What's that, Ruth?"

"Don't go back into work tonight. Stay home. Watch some mindless reality show on TV. Have a drink."

"I've already had about three. Large ones, too."

"Then have another, and go to bed. We can talk more tomorrow."

* * *

They spend another thirty seconds just breathing into the phone, and then Harry says thank you and goodnight, and hangs up.

That was a close one. He was on the verge of asking her could he go over to see her. Had he asked, and had she said yes, he would not have hesitated.

It is only now that Ruth has returned to London, to the Grid, to work beside him, that Harry recognises how much he'd missed her while she was away. After those first difficult weeks after Ruth had left Britain, during which he had to travel to Israel to be with Catherine while she was operated on, he buried himself in work, mostly denying that Ruth's absence was affecting him. He'd worked hard, and he'd been effective. There were times when he knew he'd stepped over that invisible line which separates acceptable behaviour from unacceptable. He'd only done it a few times, and then towards people whom he considered had deserved it. He'd been angry – incensed – and a little anger channelled in the right direction was an effective tool in the security business. He knows no spies of his own age who don't carry a burden of unexpressed emotion – rage, pain, guilt, love. Yes …... love.

Which brings him back to Ruth. Is what he feels for her love, or is it guilt? Perhaps it is both, because he knows he feels guilty about what happened to George, and the boy. A boy will grow up without his father because of what he did – he put the wellbeing of many above the wellbeing of Ruth's new family. Then, with the aid of another large whiskey, he allows his mind to wander into uncharted territory.

_What would you have done had Mani directly threatened Ruth's life? Would you have been spy enough to stand by and watch while he ordered her tortured and killed? Well, would you …... Harry, old son?_

So ... that's the £60,000 question, isn't it?

And it's easy to give the right answer, the _correct_ answer after the fact. It would not have been easy had Mani lost his cool and tried that one. He tries to put himself back in the situation, in the dirty, disused warehouse with the broken panes of glass. Harry closes his eyes, leans against the back of his armchair, and takes himself back there. It was only a little over a month ago that it had happened, so how hard can it be to re-live the experience? He can taste the metallic dust which got into his nostrils and, despite his mouth being closed, his throat. He hears Mani's voice - his accent, his taunts - and then he sees Ruth's face as she is being brought in. He knows his face didn't change as she was led into the room and sat opposite him. Seeing her at that moment stirred in him the most exquisite joy, as well as the most terrifying fear he has ever experienced, although emotional suppression is one of his skills. He does it well. Except that when Ruth was brought into that dirty room in that ugly building, there had been something inside him trying to get out. There had been …... _something_ ….

Harry stands suddenly, and runs to the kitchen, where he vomits into the sink. He heaves some more, and all he brings up is the whiskey he's imbibed during the past couple of hours. He hasn't eaten. He hasn't been able to. When all that's left to hurl up is bile, Harry lets his head drop so that his forehead rests on the cool metal of the sink's edge. Then he cries, although the sound he makes is more of a howl than a cry. He cries for Ruth and her losses; he cries for dear Jo, far too young to have met her death, and so violently; he cries for his children, who had to grow up without him; most of all, he cries for himself.

He cries for himself because he'd fallen in love with a woman, and then he'd lost her, and when she again stepped back into his life, he'd almost lost her again. Perhaps, when all is said and done, he has already lost her. Perhaps he lost Ruth the moment he allowed George to be shot and killed while she watched. _I am poison to the people I care for …... the people I love. They all grow to hate me in the end._ He has vomited up the poison, the poison which has been killing him and the love between himself and the people he loves.

Once he quietens, Harry runs the hot water in the sink, and then fossicks around in the sink cupboard for some bleach. While he cleans out the sink, he makes a decision. Things between he and Ruth will never be as they were before she'd left to go into exile. They can't be and they shouldn't be. They must be different. He will make it his business to ensure they are not only different, but better.


	4. Chapter 4

_**A/N: Neddy's is fictional.**_

_**I'm bumping this up to a T rating - for this chapter and the next.**_

* * *

_2 months later:_

It had been a dramatic day even before the Home Secretary resigned in disgrace. That had well and truly been the icing on the cake. Then the icing had been topped off with chocolate sprinkles when Ruth had asked him to go for a drink. He'd not jumped for joy, nor had he done a little dance in his office. He'd waited until Ruth's words had sunk in, until he knew that she had said: "Harry, would you like to go for a drink?", and not: "Harry, what would you say if I wore something pink?"

Then he'd said he would like to have a drink with her …... and then Tariq had interrupted their moment with news of the Nightingale money being transferred to Pakistan. By 8.30pm there was not a lot more could be achieved by remaining on the Grid; Tariq could take care of things. Ruth had gone to her desk to get her coat and her bag, and she was preparing to leave alone when Harry had stood in her way.

"About that drink," he'd said quietly, pushing his arms through the sleeves of his overcoat.

"But …." Ruth had looked around them, and seeing no-one, she smiled at him. "Isn't it too late?"

"For you and me, Ruth, it's never too late."

They had both understood the double meaning in Harry's statement.

"This is me taking you for a drink," he continued.

"But -"

"No buts, Ruth. We need to eat, too. I know just the place."

The place is Neddy's, a wine bar and eatery in a gentrified building in a cul de sac just a little north of the river. Harry asks for a table upstairs, where they'll have a view of the river …... and the lights.

They eat in near silence, each finding it comfortable being together in this way. Eating alone together is something they'd not done in their previous life together …... other than that one time, of course. Harry orders a bottle of sauvignon blanc to accompany their fish meals – oysters for him, and plaice for her. Ruth's piece of fish is so large that Harry has to help her eat it. They laugh when Harry says that her mouth is bigger than her eyes.

"No," she replies, "what you mean is that my eyes are bigger than my stomach."

"I knew it was something like that. I couldn't remember which part of you was bigger than the other."

Harry occupies himself pouring them each another glass of wine, aware that his tangled mess of words could be misconstrued, and he doesn't want misunderstandings this early in the evening.

"I'm sorry …. I meant -"

"I know what you meant, Harry. I'm not offended."

They each catch the other's eye, and they smile. Harry thinks that Ruth's smile would have to be the eighth wonder of the world. It lights up the room, and it warms his heart like nothing else can.

"Dessert?" Harry asks, when Ruth's plate is almost clean.

"You have to be kidding," she says, smiling at him again. "But don't let me stop you."

"I shouldn't," he replies, patting his stomach.

"Live a little, Harry. If you want dessert, then order it. I won't tell anyone."

So he orders a slice of home-made apple pie with a double serving of cream. "You can help me eat it," he adds, after the waiter delivers his order.

Ruth sits over her glass of wine while Harry picks at his pie with a fork.

"Do you want some?" he asks, lifting a small portion of apple pie with cream in her direction.

She smiles, and before she has time to shake her head, he has the pie heading towards her mouth.

"Open up," he teases, passing the pie gently under her nose to entice her, so that a dob of cream lands on her upper lip.

"Harry -"

"You said I should live a little, Ruth, and so should you. Come on."

So Ruth opens her mouth enough to take a tiny bite, and then pushes his hand away. She is having fun. He is having fun. They have not mentioned the Home Secretary's resignation, or Nightingale, or Tariq, or Lucas North, or work since the lull in conversation just after they'd ordered dinner. Remarkably, and without any effort, they have created a Grid-free zone.

Suddenly, a flash of something bright lights up the sky outside the window which overlooks the balcony.

"Christ, it's a terror attack," Harry says, his eyes opening wide.

Ruth turns her head to see what all the fuss is about. Other diners have left their tables, and are moving towards the balcony. "Fireworks!" Ruth exclaims, turning back to catch Harry's eye. "Let's take a closer look."

Harry moves around the table to help Ruth from her chair. He takes her hand, and leads her out on to the balcony, where around a dozen other people are lined up along the balustrade, watching the fireworks display on the Thames. Harry stands aside to allow Ruth to lean against the balustrade. He steps behind her, his hand on her back, his thigh touching her hip. She is very aware of him – the warmth of his hand, the places where his body touches hers, and the feeling of his breath lifting the ends of her hair. Ruth loves fireworks, but more than that, she loves having Harry standing so close to her. It is something new for them, and she delights in it.

Rockets shoot into the air, and burst into myriad lights of many colours, accompanied by the repeated crack of many small explosions. The people around them on the balcony whistle and cheer, while Ruth smiles widely, and then turns to smile at Harry. He has never been happier. He slides his hand from her back to around her waist, and she steps back, her back flush against his chest.

The reason for the fireworks display is discussed by some of the diners who are standing close by. No-one seems to know.

"Unless this really is the prelude to a full scale terror attack," Harry says, so that only Ruth can hear, "I really don't much care. Do you?"

Ruth shakes her head, effectively agreeing with him. The display has brought them close to one another, and that is enough. Ruth is watching the fireworks, and Harry is watching Ruth's face. Suddenly, a series of rockets soar skywards, making a whistling sound.

"They sound like the bombs dropping on London during the blitz in 1940 and `41," Harry says quietly against Ruth's ear.

"I take it you were there," she quips, turning inside his arm to look at him.

"Not exactly. When I was a child of around eight, I developed an obsession for the details of the German bombing blitz on London after my grandfather told me about it. There are maps on the internet showing where every bomb fell. Despite the blackout, the Luftwaffe found their way into London by following the Thames. All around here – all along the Thames – was bombed almost nightly. Imagine that ….. how frightening it must have been."

Ruth is still looking at him, and her gaze falls to his lips. He longs to kiss her, but doesn't wish to take advantage of this moment. They are both vulnerable, but she far more than he. Instead, he takes his free arm from the balustrade, and slips it around her waist so that his hands meet against her stomach. He pulls her against him, and drops a kiss against her hair. He feels Ruth's hands rest on his own as the sparkling fallout from the skyrockets rains silently all around.

The fireworks display ends, and the other diners wander back into the dining room to finish their meals. Ruth and Harry stay standing near the balustrade, his arms around her, her hands on his, his face against her hair. Neither wish the night to end, but it must.

"Are you cold?" he asks.

"How could I possibly be cold?"

"Good."

"But we'll have to go soon."

"I know. I don't want to go."

"Neither do I …... but we have to go home some time, Harry."

He pulls away from her, and taking her hand in his, he leads her back to their table. They have to finish the wine …... and the apple pie Harry had ordered.

* * *

Harry walks Ruth to her front door. When she invites him in - "for a small whiskey" - he is tempted, but doesn't wish to push his luck at this early stage. The truth behind his reluctance to stay is that he doesn't wish to have his desire for Ruth thrown back in his face. Were he to make a move to kiss her properly, she may not welcome it. _Why is everything with Ruth always so layered?_

"I shouldn't," he says, and leans down to kiss Ruth on the lips. It is a brief, chaste kiss, and then he says goodnight, and turns away from her, towards his car.

Inside the car, Harry slumps back against the seat, exhausted from the day, and from keeping the lid on his feelings, his wants and desires. He looks across towards her front door. It is closed, although he can see the muted glow of the light in her front hallway, and he is sure it is Ruth's silhouette he sees through the opaque glass which surrounds the door.

Suddenly his mobile phone rings. _Please, let this not be work …..._

"Ruth?"

"Hi. I …... can you come back inside?"

"Why? What's wrong?"

"Everything."

"Tell me. What's wrong, Ruth?"

"Just come back. Please, Harry."

So he does. Ruth stands in the open doorway as he steps through. She closes the door and locks it behind him.

Harry turns to face her, his own face a question.

"Please stay with me, Harry. Tonight."

Ruth looks nervous, her hands by her side as if she's not sure where to put them. Harry understands her meaning, as well as her anxiety. It is so very risky putting ones desires out there, for someone else to trample all over.

Harry grasps her hands in his, and warms them between his by rubbing his thumbs across her knuckles. Very slowly, he pulls her closer. "Why now?" he asks.

"Because …..." Ruth looks up at him, her face open, her love for him unmistakeable. "Because next time it could be one of us …... or both of us, and I don't wish the one of us left behind to regret not having …... taken the step I want us to take tonight."

There. It's out now ….. out in the open. The big fear they each have, that anyone who works in the secret service has. They have no idea which day will be their last, which opportunity will be the one they should have grasped greedily with both hands.

Harry doesn't hesitate. He draws Ruth to him, and holds her close, his arms around her, her face against his shoulder, his cheek against her hair. They stand like that for several minutes, giving themselves time to relax, and to accept what will happen on this night.

After a time, Harry pulls back a little from the embrace, and reaches down to kiss her, gently at first, and then with more intensity – exploring, demanding, seeking her tongue with his own. His hands hold her face, while her hands glide across his back, sending electrical pulses through his whole body. When they pull out of the kiss they are both breathing heavily, their eyes shining. They each want more. It is written on their faces.

"Upstairs?" Ruth asks, breathless, grasping Harry's hand.

Harry nods, smiling, allowing Ruth to take the lead.

* * *

_**A/N: This is where this fic originally ended (and perhaps should have ended), but I have added an epilogue - a little fluff to balance out the angst.**_


	5. Epilogue

_**A/N: Given the time when this chapter takes place, I am veering away from canon. Just some light-hearted fluff to finish with.**_

_**Thank you to all who followed this story, and for the reviews. You are all most kind. **_

* * *

_Six weeks later:_

"You know that they all know."

"Who is it knows what, Ruth?"

It is early morning, and they are lying close together in post-coital bliss.

"Everyone knows."

"Do you mean everyone on the planet?"

"Of course not." Ruth pushes his side playfully with her fingers. His skin is still moist with sweat. She buries her nose into his shoulder, and breathes him in – she finds Harry's smell intoxicating. "You know who I mean."

"You can say, `everyone at work', Ruth. You won't lose points."

"We made a pact to not discuss work in the bedroom -"

"And to not discuss the bedroom while at work. I know."

"This is about those we work with, so …..."

"It's not about work, but about the people at work. I won't send you out of the room for talking about them, you know."

"I'm happy to hear that, Harry. They _know_."

"I can only suppose you mean that they know about us …... and what we get up to away from work."

"Put like that, it sounds like we're doing something illegal, like people-smuggling."

"How do you know they know?"

"Hayley asked me point blank were we sleeping together."

"The nerve of her. What did you say?"

"It was at an analyst's meeting …. gathering ….."

"Coven."

"Harry! Behave yourself. Anyway, it can't be a coven because of Amit. And I think that 13 of us are required for it to be officially a coven."

"So …... you, Hayley, Amit and Tanya were discussing things analytical."

"And intelligent."

"So, you, Hayley, Amit and Tanya were discussing things of an intelligent and analytical nature. Then what? Talk me through this."

"And Tariq. He was there as well."

"Did you need him to take down the minutes?"

"Harry!" Ruth leans towards his right nipple, and play-bites his skin. "Play nice."

"I like the biting, Ruth. It's very ….. arousing."

"So the five of us were in the meeting room -"

"When was this?"

"Hell, I don't know. A week or so ago. Maybe more. We were about to discuss reporting methods -"

"I'm surprised they didn't all get up and walk out."

"How we collate and deliver our reports is a fundamental part of an analyst's job, Harry, as you well know. The methods they use at GCHQ are clumsy and out-dated. As I was saying, I was about to list the most important steps in report-writing, when Hayley came out with – and I quote - `Are you shagging the boss?'"

"And you said?"

"Nothing. I just kept going with the list. When the meeting ended, she came up to me and apologised, and then as she left the meeting room, she said, `everyone knows'."

"Do you know what you should have done?"

"I thought I handled it well."

"You did, but you didn't admit to it. Andrew Lawrence asked me the same thing."

"The Home Secretary asked you if you're sleeping with your senior intelligence analyst?"

"No. What he said was: `By the way, Harry, are you and Ruth Evershed at it?'"

"And you said?"

"I hesitated. Nicholas Blake would never have been so blunt, or so rude, but Lawrence is young. I said: `Yes, we are. I trust that meets with your approval'."

"And he said?"

"He smiled widely and slapped me on the shoulder. Had he said `touchdown', or `goal', I would have had to punch him. As it was, I think he was pleased. I'm sure he believed me to be past it."

"Christ!"

"So, Ruth, this – what we do when we're alone and the world is not knocking at our door – is already in the public domain."

Ruth lays back against her own pillow, chewing the edge of her fingernail. Seeing her changed body language, Harry raises himself on one elbow, and leans over her.

"But it's alright, Ruth, because these people who know also care about us. They want us to be happy."

"I'm not sure that Hayley wants us to be happy."

"Hayley is twelve. When she matures, she'll understand. I suspect that she already knew the answer to her question, and by asking you the way she did, she was just trying to embarrass you in front of the others."

"She must hate me." Ruth's face, as she looks into his eyes, has developed her worried look.

"No, sweetheart, she's jealous of you. She'll never – not in twenty lifetimes – ever be the analyst you are, and she knows it. Her mind is too occupied with thoughts of shoes and hair extensions, and all the other things girls of her age obsess about."

"Tattooing."

"Tattooing? She has tattoos?"

"She's having her boyfriend's name tattooed on her left breast. I heard her telling Tanya."

"Dear God. The world is changing too fast for me."

Ruth reaches up to slide her hands around his neck, and weaving her fingers through his curls, she draws his head closer to her. "The world inside this room is just perfect, Harry. Things in here are ticking along nicely, and at the perfect pace."

Harry reaches down to kiss her, gently but slowly, his lips soft and warm against hers.

"Things in this room are just the way I like them, Ruth," he says at last.

They lay in one another's arms and watch the glow from the rising sun blinking between the gap where the curtains don't quite meet. In less than twenty minutes, Harry's alarm will sound, and their day will begin. Until then, they can imagine they are the only two people in the world, which is exactly how they like it.


End file.
